Grilled sirloin steak

Eastside Road, June 4, 2013—

A COUPLE OF OLD friends over to dinner tonight, for something from the grill. We'd bought a couple of pounds of sirloin steak, grass fed. I salted them on every side when we got the home, yesterday, and covered them loosely in the paper they'd been wrapped in, and left them in the refrigerator.

Today I got them out an hour or two before our guests arrived. I chopped up a bunch of fresh rosemary leaves quite fine, and ground in black pepper. I sprinkled the steaks on every side with olive oil, then sprinkled on the rosemary, and let them stand an hour or so.

I quartered a good-sized onion, leaves and all, and protected the leaves with aluminum foil. Lindsey had prepped some mushrooms, which I bathed in olive oil, then skewered.

The fire was part charcoal, part grape-wood. I let it burn down pretty well to coals, then put everything on the grill. A few minutes on each side for the steak. I have to say, it was all pretty good.

Lindsey's potato-and-shallot warm salad; a green salad; then a wonderful sour cherry pie with ice cream on the side. Does it get much better than this? No.

Picpoul de Pinet, Moulin de Gaussac, 2011; "Old Soul Red," Atrea, Saracina Winery, 2009: old-style Dago red (Mendocino county),, forward and full-bodied and thick